


the world we left behind/the world left us behind

by vype



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 20:07:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/917523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vype/pseuds/vype
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After all the titans are gone, they're free... or something like it, anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the world we left behind/the world left us behind

**Author's Note:**

> Kink meme prompt: http://snkkink.dreamwidth.org/524.html?thread=646412#cmt646412

"If we don't go back, they'd never find us."

"Hmm."

It's decided then, but it takes them another three weeks before they finally leave. Erwin sends them on a simple hunt to bring back some game, something routine ("This isn't routine," she wants to scream. "Routine is studying titans and killing titans and dying to titans and _titans!_ " Hange keeps her mouth shut.) 

They're sent out with two other people. Levi doesn't let it show, but it's unnerving. Only four of them. Just four of them and their horses and bows and arrows and a knife (not knives, just _a_ knife) and not even their 3DMG. Every time a bird takes flight or the trees rustle, he can't help but sharply jerk around, his hands reaching for his swords and- oh. Oh.

"I don't like this," Hange confides to him a few minutes after they leave. They're somewhat further ahead of the other two. "It's not right."

He doesn't need to say anything- _obviously_ nothing's right here.

They find some deer, a wild boar- Levi even manages to shoot down three birds. It's so... mundane. Killing things that can't fight back, watching them slowly bleed before ending their misery in a swift, decisive cut. Is this how it feels to be a titan?

The other two are away; they've gone to search for game elsewhere. 

"Nobody's watching," Levi remarks casually, tilting his head up to the afternoon sun. 

"We have horses," Hange adds. "Nobody knows what the area around here is like. They'd never be able to catch up to us." She hesitates a moment. "There aren't going to be any showers, though. We'll- you'll smell. Like dirt. And shit."

Levi places this one bird with the others, and then mounts his horse again. "Let's just go," he says.

They ride, and their capes trail behind them like wings.

-

"Sir!" Erwin raises an eyebrow and looks up; it's a flustered new recruit, panting heavily with a hand on the doorframe. 

"Yes?"

"Corporal Levi and Squad Leader Hange are missing!"

Erwin blinks twice, and then turns his head to look out the window. "Ah." What was this man's name again? He's too tired to remember. "Thank you for telling me. You are dismissed."

The man hesitates, but after Erwin gives him a silent stare he quickly turns and leaves. Erwin doesn't like having an office like this, but it does give him a very good view of Wall Maria. Not that it is much to look at, really. He spends a few minutes just staring at the flat stone wall, not really thinking about anything in particular.

He has documents to sign, he recalls after a while. The sunset outside paints his office red like dancing flames. As he picks up a pen to continue his paperwork, he hopes that Levi and Hange are at least a little happier out there.

-

Rocks and fields and little woods. That's all they encounter for the first three days. There's a river- Hange makes them boil the water before they drink from it. They sleep under the stars, flat on their backs in the middle of the meadow, watching the darkness above. Their horses are tied to the trunks of some nearby trees, silently grazing.

"It's cold," Hange says. Levi snorts and doesn't deign to respond. He shrugs off his cape and tosses it over to her.

They're silent a while longer.

"I thought I'd be happier," she admits after a while.

She can _feel_ him roll his eyes. "What, with the titans gone? You're never happy unless you're going on and on about your stupid experiments."

She frowns quietly at that. "You're right. I can't be happy, can't I? I never did find out anything useful about them after all. And now they're gone. All of them. Forever. Everything I did, worthless. Just like that." She chuckles a bit, brittle and hollow like a thin sheet of glass.

There's nothing that Levi can say to that, so he just closes his eyes and lets the cool wind wash over his face.

-

It's rather surprising that it's Hange who has the most trouble adapting. Sure, Levi almost went insane the first month(? It's tiring and not worth the effort to keep track of how much time has passed anymore) when he kept trying to brush himself clean; everything he did just seemed to smear more dirt and sweat and vileness all over his body. He gives up eventually, though he still spends the next week or so shivering whenever he thinks about how much grime must be coating the both of them.

But it's Hange who still startles whenever Levi snaps a twig; it's Hange who twirls around holding a knife almost like she would a sword when Levi suddenly breaks their comfortable silences; it's Hange who stays awake deep into the night and wakes up mumbling some strange mix of ideas for new titan experiments and orders to Moblit.

(Moblit died in the final battle. He shoved Hange to the side and she watched him slowly get chewed in half. His last words were, "You should really be more careful, Squad Leader.")

Levi, well... he's still twitchy. He doesn't like sudden contact, and he can't stop scanning the treetops on the lookout for approaching titans. But he's at least better than Hange is.

He doesn't know how to help her. She doesn't know how to help herself. 

What a fine pair they make.

-

Levi's hair is longer and a knotted mess, so's Hange's. There are cracks in Hange's glasses, but she learns to live with them and can aim and hunt as well as he can. Hange thinks it might have been maybe two years. Her horse is getting older and can no longer ride as fast or as long as he once did.

The first time they have sex, they had just discovered the ocean. The smell of saltwater is heavy in the air, and the cry of large white birds fills the mornings. They stop in a cave somewhere a little bit away from the rocky shore, just enough so that the sea is still in sight.

Hange peels off her shirt, presses and folds it neatly, then places it on top of a somewhat flat rock. Levi quickly undresses as well. Who really cares about privacy anymore?

They lie back to back, Levi looking out towards the ocean, Hange facing the brown cave wall. Hange matches her breaths to Levi's; they pass a few minutes in this way.

Later, neither of them can remember how it starts. All Hange really remembers is feeling Levi's tongue on her breast, his calloused hand sliding down her hips; pressing her pelvis closer to Levi, tasting salt and something dark and smoky as they kiss- That night passes in a blur of sensations, she parses everything through a haze of mounting heat and pleasure, occasionally interspaced by sudden flashes of clarity, concrete images: fingers tightly interlaced as Levi pushes into her, his kisses on her throat (rough and curt even then), the sound of their breathing becoming ever more desperate, quicker; speed and her nails digging into his back until the white-hot rush of _release._

What she doesn't recall is either of them saying the other's name.

After, they lie next to each other. "I'm tired of running," he says, staring up at the ceiling of their cave. "I'm tired."

He would never have admitted this before now, but humanity's strongest gets tired too. "Me too," she says into his shoulder.

It's a long time before either of them fall asleep.

-

They wake up the next morning in silent agreement. 

Hange sets the horses free; just before she lets them go, she strokes their necks, lets her fingers run through their manes. Levi would have wanted to say goodbye to his own horse, she thinks as they race beyond the horizon.

Levi finds and cuts down the trees, bringing the logs back so that the two of them can lash them together into a workable raft. It's harder work than it sounds, and they spend most of the morning working at this. Their first two tries sink, the third one leaks, and the fourth one can't support their weight. On their fifth try, they manage to get something that they can both lie on.

The afternoon is bright and strong when they climb on and push off of the shore. All they bring with them are the clothes on their backs, and the bone-deep exhaustion that permeates every single fiber of their bodies.

Hange trails a hand in the water- the ocean is surprisingly cool, even in the midday. It's refreshing. She looks up, sees only deep vibrant blue stretching out into the horizon, unceasing. "It's so big," she says.

"Yeah."

"Like the end of the world."

"Yeah."

Overhead, the gulls circle. Feathers drift down, caught in the wind, and they are gone, whisked away by the ocean breeze.


End file.
